


Writing Destiny

by lamesister



Series: Writing Destiny [1]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dimension Travel, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28371081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamesister/pseuds/lamesister
Summary: A visit from Death, a choice, a new universe with an impending doom.Jason really has his work cut out for him.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Jason Todd
Series: Writing Destiny [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081406
Comments: 59
Kudos: 180





	1. Chapter 1

Jason bolts awake, a hand coming to his throat. 

Bruce - Joker - a batarang - _explosion_ \- 

“Peace, Jason Todd,” a low, soft female voice calls out into the empty nothingness he’s only now just starting to see. The familiarity of it stops him mid-panic. 

He takes one breath, holds it, and releases it as he traces the new scar wrapping around his throat. He takes another, closing his eyes against the black, and gravels out with a weak, bitter chuckle, “The Bats kill me?” 

Talking hurt, he discovers. He doesn’t remember death hurting last time, not once he was _here_.

“No.”

His eyes flash open, staring at the small, snow-white woman in front of him who he remembers with... perfect clarity. Perfect clarity, _now_. Death. Her hair is a frizzy black; her clothes the exact same down to the black grommet belt, tank, and jeans. She still has a black spiral underneath her right eye and a silver ankh necklace. 

“Then what the fuck am I doing here?”

She purses her lips. “He injured you seriously enough that I could talk to you--”

He snorts, “So he almost killed me. Over the goddamn _Joker_ “.

“Jason.” She looks down at him from where he is still sitting on nothingness, sighs, and sits cross legged across from him. It was startling enough to shut him up. “I have a story to tell you. Are you going to interrupt?”

He shrugs, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I make no promises.”

She looks resigned as if she knew she couldn’t get anything better from him. “Very well.” She shifts where she’s sitting, looking at him with intense, deep black eyes. “Destiny. My brother writes, and creates, and destroys. We can not exist without him, yet he can not exist without us. Checks and balances, you could say.

“He creates not a set order of events, but things one is going to live through, or perhaps those near them. Some people are just plot devices, used to further on the world with little consequence. Some further endlessness by leaps and bounds, rising actions, climaxes, endings… But, Death is everything’s destiny, in the end.” Her eyes sharpen, and Jason knows to pay absolute attention to her next words. 

“You, Jason Todd, are a plot hole in your universe. You lived your death before you checked the other boxes Destiny wrote for you. My bringing you back rectified that, but now… Each box has been marked. You played your part in other’s stories-”

“So, what,” he interrupts aggressively, “now that I’ve played the puppet you’re just going to cut my strings with my _semi-fatal_ Batman-inflicted wound?”

“No.” She smiles softly. Goddamn, is she patient. “You are unmoored, Jason Todd. And my brother is a crappy writer. In another universe, different plots are crashing and I do not like the road that they are on. The climax I see is not written, yet will happen without interference.” Her voice drops, eyes and lips twitching downwards, “I rather like watching humanity, Jason. Do not let me take half of a universe in a blink.”

“Wha- _what_?” Jason shoots to his feet, “What the fuck do you mean, take half of humanity?”

She looks up at him. “You are unmoored. Your future is not writ, save the death that is obscured at the end of your road.”

“What the _fuck_ does that have to do with anything?” Jason wants to pace, but the non-ground was like walking on something unbalanced and after a step or two he decides to not push it. 

“You can interfere. This event is not Destiny. It can be prevented.”

“You want _me_ to go to another universe to stop half of all life in their universe from dying?” He asks, voice pitched. “What- what about Gotham, and-”

Death stands, hands cupping his face. “Jason. It is your choice. Every choice is exactly yours to do with as you please. Nothing’s set for you.”

“Except my death.”

“Death is inevitable. But the how, where, when has already been filled once for you and now is up to the spinnings of life.” She steps back. “The choice is yours.”

“How do you know this disaster isn’t inevitable? How do you know it’s even going to happen? The Flashes mess up the timeline enough as it is to know that it’s never that easy. How do you know that my going there won’t just make it worse?”

“I… I am not Destiny. But I feel the deaths of the multiverse. This… is like a ripple, it’s so big,” her voice grows with each word, “I do not know if your intervention will make it better or worse, but I can _sense_. Your intervention would do _something_ big enough that I can feel the potential ripples already.”

That’s a non-answer. Potential ripples means that the universe already knows what he’s decided. Potential ripples don’t mean anything good. They don’t mean anything bad, either. It just means he changes _something_.

_The choice is yours._

It’s not a choice, not really. He doesn’t exactly _care_ about these strangers in a whole ‘nother universe, but there could be innocents, children, dead in one, giant blow. If he could prevent it and he doesn’t, then that’s on him, isn’t it? It’s hardly a question. He couldn’t _not_ help.

Gotham has the Bat. The Replacement’s smart, he won’t let Jason’s power vacuum eat Gotham right back up to how things were. Gotham will go on without him, he bitterly muses. 

“The choice is mine,” he scoffs, “You're almost as manipulative as the Bat, Death.”

She smiles at him, warm, genuine, relieved. He wants to hate her, but the After is never what scared him. It is... the possibility of coming back, again and again, to a world where everyone has forgotten him. He muses if that’s still possible, now that his death isn’t set. Then he drops that thread, wary of where it’ll lead his thoughts. 

“Well, let’s get this show on the road. Anything I should know _besides_ that this universe is fucked?”

She teeters her hand back and forth. “You’ll have a few years. Soon, a team will come together that will have the best chance of stopping this. Do not forget that it is not just a Terran conflict.”

“Right. Aliens and an off-brand Justice League, got it,” he tilts his head, mind already spinning through different scenarios. He doesn’t have near enough information. “How many years?”

“Unclear-” he takes a breath to declare just how not useful that is “-but the average is about a decade.”

He releases his breath, staring into the nothingness over Death’s shoulder. A decade. He can work with a decade. In a decade, he’d have been with this new universe for roughly a third of his life. He takes in and releases another deep breath. He closes his eyes and breathes again. 

He opens his eyes, shaking out his hands. “Okay. Alright,” He refocuses on Death, “Okay. What kills everyone?”

Death tilts her head to the side. “...They are called the Infinity Stones. Much like the Endless, they provide and control the constants in the universe. Unlike the Endless, they were created. They are… tools. There are six: Reality, Soul, Mind, Time, Space, and Power. A being has plans to use them to wipe away half the universe. They are scattered, right now, across the galaxy. They will not stay that way,” Her eyes meet his, “Find them before your enemy, Jason.”

“Right. Six little pebbles are gonna destroy half the universe. Got it.” He clears his throat, tracing his new scar. Talking hurt. He presses his lips together, “Anything else?”

“I have a gift for you,” She stands, eyes tracing his face, his body. They flicker back up to his eyes, some unintelligible emotion in them. For a second, he wonders why she cares-- about any of it, about all of it. He supposes it doesn’t matter, not truely. 

She holds out her hand and out of nothing comes… more nothing. It looks exactly like the darkness around them, black and empty, but it has… shape. It looks like an ankh. 

“...Okay,” he glances from the depthless Ankh to Death’s face. She looks amused at his reaction. “What is it?”

“It is… energy and potential, for lack of a name and something more comparable. It is anything you want or need it to be. It is powered by the soul. Currently, it is powered by mine.”

He snaps his fingers, “Like the All-Blades?”

“Energy-source wise, yes. This can, however, be used on anything and take whatever form you wish. The bigger or more finer detailed, the more soul energy it takes. Regardless, it should take hours before you come to any serious harm.” 

She demonstrates, the Ankh seamless flowing from it’s current shape to that of a small knife. She presses the hilt into his hand for him to take. He shivers, a bone-deep twang reverberating through his body. Sneaky, it’s his whether he wants it or not now. He peers closer and realizes that the ankh symbol is still embedded on the handle. 

“What if I lose it? Like, what if I turn it into a throwing knife and use it that way?”

“It shall return to you, be it active or passive state-- depending on what you need or are thinking, after it serves whatever function you let go of it to do.”

He nods, “Sounds useful. And what about when I’m not using it?” he asks, rolling the knife between his fingers. He thinks for a second, willing the blade to dagger-size. It transforms in suit, albeit slowly. He needs to practice. “And how do I know when I’m low on juice before I get fatigued?”

“When you’re not using it, it shall enter it’s passive state.”

“Passive state?”

“It will look like a tattoo of an ankh,” she nods at his arm, “Go on, try to figure it out.”

He looks at the dark dagger in his right hand, focusing on turning it into something like what she said. Passive, he thinks. It… melts, again for lack of a better term, a cool, barrierless solid that travels up his arm and sinks beneath his skin. 

Goosebumps break out over his body. “That felt… odd,” he pauses, trying not to sound like he’s complaining, “D, can it be any smaller?” The Ankh tattoo is the length of his forearm. 

“No,” her voice is lilting, “Again, passive state, it’s most basic form. There are other uses, of course, besides it being a weapon, but I shall leave that up to you to discover.”

“Alright. Sounds… fun. Now, how do I know how much I’ve used of myself to power it?”

She reaches up and tugs on the white streak in his hair. “The bigger this patch gets, the more of your soul you’ve used. In it’s passive state, the Ankh won’t take any energy from you and you shall naturally replenish your own.”

He blinks and the ramification of what she said. “I don’t have part of my soul?”

Death frowns, “...That is not what I wanted you to take away from that. But, no, some of you… remained behind when I reincarnated you.”

His hands shake. Deep breaths, he’s been doing good so far. 

When he gets it together again, he croaks, “Thanks for the gift. Time to go?” Please, please be it time for him to go. He doesn’t want any more surprises.

She nods, “Time to go. Don’t join me anytime soon.” She presses her hands to his temples.

He flashes a jagged smile, “I have no plans to.”

“Goodbye, Jason.”

He looks at her, the one constant in his life. He thinks it should be sad, that it’s Death. “Goodbye, D.”

White, blinding in the empty black, flashes and he snaps his eyes closed against the onslaught. 

Then he proceeds to not see anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo! Thanks for reading! It’ll be ride, that’s for sure.
> 
> I DO know where this is going! Lol. It’s almost all plotted. 
> 
> I make no promises on a consistent update schedule though. 
> 
> See you next time!


	2. Chapter 2

Jason _aches_. Wherever he is and whatever happened, he has not felt this shitty in a long, long time. 

He struggles to get his eyes open, glued together like cement. It happens slowly, and with more than a little frustration. He’s in an alley. A cold, dingy wet alleyway with garbage cans and with utterly nothing he recognizes. 

Step two, then: he needs to catalog his injuries. He just generally aches, deep to his bones, but it is his throat that feels like it is on fire.

He sits up, curses vehemently at the dizziness and nausea, collapses back down, and just viscerally, viscerally curses all that his life is. He curses Bruce, the Joker, and Death.

He breathes deep, head on concrete and eyes tracing the rooftops. He has to get up. He has to get up, away from whatever disturbance in the fabric between universes brought him here- because there was no doubt in his mind that there was one- and has to catalog anything and everything he can about this universe. 

This time, he sits up slowly. It’s still bad, he still wants to turn his insides out, but it’s manageable. From his sitting position, he gradually shifts to his knees, then he stands with help of a brick wall. He pulls the sleeve of his right arm up. The Ankh is there, the black a little too dark to be natural. He releases his sleeve; he’ll deal with it later. 

His eyes flicker to the mouth of the alley, where people go back and forth along a busy city street. He hears snippets of English in a familiar accent he could probably place when he was a little less out of it. Well, he gathers he’s at least he’s in America. 

He slowly makes his way towards the open sidewalk, gradually easing himself off of leaning on the wall. His gait is unsteady, but at worst people will think he’s drunk. That is, if anyone even notices; city folk mind their own business. 

It’s then, he realizes, that for the most part, he’s in his Red Hood gear. He’s lacking only his helmet. He sighs and leans against the wall as he stuffs the guns typically strapped to his thighs in pockets on the inside of his leather jacket. He puts another in the waistband of his pants, angling it just so that the outline is unrecognizable. He pulls off his mask, the skin determined to stay attached. He puts that in the interior of his jacket too, then zips it up. He ruffles his hair for good measure. 

There’s not much he can do for his holsters. It’ll also do little to distract from the ruined collar of his suit, nor the ugly red scar beneath it. 

Thank the stars for whatever voodoo Death worked on him and his own healing factor. 

He does, however, like cities for just this reason. No one will give Jason a second glance. (It's a lie to say this is why he likes cities, but it’s a lie he likes. It’s easier to say he likes cities for something so simple.)

He turns towards the street and slips into the crowds, just one among the masses. 

\-----

Jason sips his coffee, busy writing up defenses for his brand new laptop smack in the back of some local coffee shop. He had seen a Starbucks or two, an apparently multiversal chain, but passed them up for something smaller with less cameras. He had acquired both the coffee and computer with a cash stash that he always keeps on him, along with some generous donations from the one or two odd rich asshole or thug he pickpocketed on the street.

He takes another sip of black coffee and thinks he should have gotten tea.

He finishes his laptop a few minutes later, not satisfied, but for the kind of deep programming he wants to do he’d need a few hours, a steady stream of caffeine, and no headache (or any other distracting bodily hurts, for that matter. But knowing him and his lifestyle, that was unlikely to happen). He’d get the first two here except for the fact that the café closes in an hour. 

He hums a little at the coffee, pulling up the search engine. He decided to start it simple, typing in ‘superheros.’

Overall, the general consensus is comic books, t.v., movies, and a WWII hero named Steve Rogers, Captain America. He laughs, which hurts, but he can’t keep the amusement off his face. Which, while he’s glad there are no kids in spandex running around, does not help him at all. He decides to bookmark the man for research later, though.

(Captain _America_ , sheesh. He represses another snicker.)

He types in his name, the Bat’s, and that of everyone he knows. There are some overlapping names (how can there not be with over seven billion people on the planet?) but no one he _knows_. There is also, however, no Joker. He can get behind that. 

There is also no Gotham, he finds out. There is no Metropolis, Central City, Star City, or any of the other dozen places vigilantes have made their homes. He learns he’s in New York. That’s good, he supposes. That’s something-- familiar. 

There are no aliens visiting the planet- nor alien contact, period (that the average joe on the internet knows, anyway), which will make space travel and transmission harder. 

There is next to nothing he is familiar with. It is… unsettling. It makes him antsy, so he turns to more buried websites for information.

This universe’s ARGUS is called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division or SHIELD. He snorts, but he has his first lead. 

He goes to type for more in depth research when a young male voice calls out, “Sir? We’re closing in five minutes.”

Jason looks up to the young curly haired barista staring at him. Jason’s the only customer left in the café.

“Right,” he answers. He finishes off his coffee, shuts his laptop, and tips the man a tad more generously than the usual coffee-goer. “‘Til tomorrow.”

He goes out onto the street, laptop tucked under his arm. For tonight, he needs to find a hotel. The one he finds has internet, minimal cameras, and looks exactly like the place where nobody asks questions (but does sell out whatever answers they find). 

It’s comfortable, familiar, if shitty.

The next day he finishes protecting his laptop, feeling a lot less like he was just rolled over by a tank. He drops back by the hotel, leaving a baffled café staff behind with another generous tip, then heads out into the city to start scouting places for him to set up while he gets his feet under him and to familiarize himself with the city. 

The rooftops are different from Gotham’s. The streets are too. Not because it’s a completely different city (that is a factor, though), but because there isn’t the same level of violence. New York is by no means violent-free, but it’s less… open. People are more discreet. 

For tonight, though, it's not his problem. (But he does stop an attempted rape.)

He finds an abandoned apartment with rooftop access. By the state of things, it has not been occupied in a _long_ time. It’ll do, he decides. At least until he finds something he can occupy semi-legally anyways. Right now, legally doesn’t even apply to _him_. 

(It’s nothing new, unfortunately.)

He returns to the hotel, strips, and takes a shower. Under the thrumming of lukewarm water, he thinks. He needs plans. He needs plans for his plans. 

The first thing he’ll do is move into the abandoned apartment. He’ll buy food and clothes after that, maybe pickpocket a rich asshole or some street thug too. If that doesn’t take the whole day (it shouldn’t, he only has what he got stuck here with and his shiny new laptop and charger,) he will hack SHIELD. 

Woo.

He’ll need to find a different coffee place for it, he kinda likes the one he’s been going to (the barista’s cute, too, even if he’s never going to go for it) and doesn’t want to stop because some shady government organization is watching it with laser focus. 

He’ll keep an eye on the news, but most of his long-term plans are hinged on what sensitive information SHIELD is hiding. After tomorrow he’ll decide how he wants to handle that. 

He finishes scrubbing down and turns off the water. He steps out and pats himself dry with a towel so old he’s suspicious of putting it on his body. He does so anyways, then slips on his underwear and pants again. He looks over his worse-for-wear top, sighs, and gets out his emergency kit for repairs he keeps on himself and busies himself patching up the collar. 

Talking to people the past two days has been… hard. He’s stuck to glares and choppy gestures for the hotel staff, but he put in some effort for the barista at the coffee place. He’s kept his food soft after trying to eat a slice of bacon. 

That wasn’t fun.

His fingers twitch with the angry want of being able to speak without it hurting or damaging his injury and vocal cords furthur, of wishing people knew ASL. (He’s used it a lot, surprisingly. With all the crazy in Gotham, more than one street kid has gone deaf.)

He stabs the needle (the rather sharp needle, specifically made to go through the materials that made up his armour) a little harder than necessary as he sews the sides together. 

The rest of his body has healed up mostly fine, though there are some lingering bruises. Pit regeneration coupled with whatever the hell Death did to him really ramped up the healing process. He wonders if the Pit’s regeneration would have been enough to close the wound at his throat without Death’s interference. He wonders if the Bat had left him to die with a lethal wound. 

He stabs the collar too hard again, and finishes stitching the collar up in stormy silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe all of you guys’s (weird word) comments make me smile! I’m glad y’all like it: :D Thank you!
> 
> Also, again, little dialogue, but ya know, Jason’s kinda having a problem with that rn, so...

Jason’s at a different café after a night of little sleep. 

Today he’s going to hack SHIELD.

He feels fluttery, like he’s about to ride an adrenaline high. His brain keeps ticking forwards, miles a minute, running though all his fallback code and the potential problems he could run into. It pulses through his limbs.

He’s excited, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s no Barbara Gordon, nor what the Replacement seems to be shaping out to be, but he is nowhere near bad. It does not bring him the same thrill fighting does, exactly; it’s a different kind of satisfaction. It’s proof that his intelligence is something that beats others too, not just brute violence. 

He orders a tea (honey lemon) today with a flash of his fingers. He discovers, rudely and with some embarrassment, that speaking now only results in no more than a whisper and a painful tightness in his throat that threatens to make it permanent. So, tea. He can’t exactly go to a doctor.

He settles in a seat near the back of the café with good sightlines and easy maneuverability. There’s also no camera coverage. He plugs in a hard drive to the computer, knowing that the computer will be a lost cause when he’s done, despite his hours of programming. That, at best, will give him a half-hour to do with whatever he pleases as he moseys his way through SHIELD’s firewalls and code. 

(Of course, a lot can be done in thirty minutes.)

He pulls up SHIELD's homepage, which he finds endlessly amusing, (they have a _homepage_ with a login, basic info— everything) and bypasses the login with a backdoor hidden well enough that most wouldn’t find it, but not so well that it’s likely to access anything _super_ important. That’s okay. He’ll get there eventually. 

He cruises the first level access it gives him. For the most part it’s just grunt operative basic information. He bypasses the second, third, and fourth levels entirely, stopping as he gets to Level 5 security. Their code is _beautiful_ , but _off_ somehow. It’s like leaving for vacation and coming home with everything moved two inches to the left.

It’s not his problem. It is harder than hacking the Pentagon, though. ...He did do that when he was twelve, so perhaps the point is moot. 

All told, everything he’s done so far couldn’t have taken more than five minutes. 

Level 5 definitely is on bigger things. He skims, eyes lingering over various projects, but there’s nothing much. He worries about the ease at which he’s hacked in, off put by the thought that they’d deliberately left a trap for hackers to fall into. He’d hurry up, but that means he could get sloppy, which means they could find him that much easier. 

It takes Jason another four minutes to get to Level 6. He’s not entirely sure he hasn’t been caught, but he’s worked around _several_ levels of security that would’ve told any number of people about his presence in their network. 

Now, Level 6 is _interesting_. He wonders what an 0-8-4 is when he comes across it, then clicks various links to learn it simply means ‘object of unknown origin.’ 

Which is a big deal for a spy organization, to not know where something is from. Upon further thought, he realizes he classifies as an 0-8-4 (to SHEILD, anyway.) 

Jason learns about Hydra, the defunct Nazi group from WWII and mentally marks it for later. Groups like that don’t die out easily. And besides, it seems like a lot of their research is based off old Hydra research. It’s at the very least worth looking into.

He finds plans for various SHIELD bases, considers, and decides it’s better to have them than not. 

He downloads them. 

His eyes skim the screen, blue light peering back at him as he decides to look into people next.

Jason discovers Natasha Romanoff, codename Black Widow, former(ish) assassin, who’s information is almost all redacted. He makes another mental sticky note about the organization she came from, too (one of the only things _not_ redacted, which, odd).

It’s scanning Romanoff’s profile and attempting to follow links to Agents Coulson and Barton, together composing STRIKE Team: Delta, that he finally gets caught and the system starts to try and kick him out. 

He smirks at the challenge, shifting in his seat, fingers flying across the keyboard. Whoever designed this, they’re good. He almost gets tracked to his location, backpedals (insomuch as you can in code), then hops from Level 5 to Level 7. He routes his pursuer (by now someone manually starting to try and kick him off) through a loop of code, figures he has less than five minutes until he gets kicked permanently, and less than seven before SHIELD arrives at his location. 

He laughs a little, breathlessly and silent. His brain is swimming with trying to keep up with streams of code and he vaguely wonders what he looks like in his little corner of the coffee shop. 

His fingers keep clacking away at the keys.

Jason reads on Clint Barton, too, _finally_ , codename Hawkeye, (as much as he can, almost all information on him is redacted too), a candidate for something called the Avengers Initiative. Barton’s one of SHIELD’s best, right besides Romanoff, and a few one or two others whose files he briefly skimmed. He tries to access Coulson’s file, a common link between most of them, but the clearance for his file is too high for him to hack here and in this time frame. 

The Avengers Initiative, though, is when he hits gold. From the bare details in the project’s brief mention, this looks to be Justice League in-the-making. Romanoff seems to be a candidate, right besides Coulson and Barton. He doesn’t get any more information than the cliff notes, though. All the interesting stuff is high clearance. It flashes a big, red Level 10 at him.

This universe’s policy on murder does seem to be much more realistic than his if they are letting assassins on superhero teams. 

SHIELD-- the Avengers, these are people he needs to keep his eye on. And not piss off. He grimaces. Hacking into their place of employment doesn’t seem like a good start. But he _needs_ them if he wants to succeed, if this is the group-to-be that Death said he’d need.

Before he cashes out of the system, Jason looks into any oddities from two days ago. His arrival was hard to miss, honestly. According to these reports energy flared so strongly in the area that some electronics were disabled. (Only the size of it was what kept blocks from having a power outage, he realizes.) There are no reports on what could have caused it, and all cameras in the area had shorted out so there was no footage of him. There are SHEILD agents trying to investigate further.

They won’t get anywhere.

He makes sure everything he looked into, made mental sticky notes of, and even remotely though was interesting was downloaded onto the hard drive. It was. 

His internal alarm sends off bells that he needs to move it. He gets booted from the system at the same time, the screen blinking up at him faux-innocently.

His adrenaline spikes. It would do him no good to be caught now.

Jason has the bones of information, though. He’d have to be on internal computers to get more. 

Hmm, now there’s an idea.

Jason removes his harddrive, snaps his computer closed, grabs his empty tea cup, and dumps the computer and tea in the trash as he leaves the coffee house. He sees a college student eyeing the can and mentally wishes them luck. 

He ducks outside, cold biting his face and hands, harsh white light permeating the space, and the sounds of the city rising in contrast to the muted space of the coffee shop. He keeps his head tilted down and hair in his face as he darts out. He slips the harddrive in an interior pocket in his jacket. He went without his obvious armour today, sans jacket and pants, instead wearing scratchy clothes he had bought at a thrift store this morning. He’d figure it would only make him stand out when that’s exactly what he doesn’t want to do.

Jason spots three suits heading this way who are so clearly SHIELD he feels offended on behalf of the spy organization. On the behalf of spies _everywhere_. They do spot him stepping out of the café, so he figures they can’t be _too_ poorly trained.

He turns his body, launching down the street. He hears feet pick up behind him as he shoves people out of the way. Shouts follow him, and he doesn’t bother apologizing. (He can’t, anyway, he thinks with a bitter twinge on his tongue.) He skids around a corner, shrugs off his jacket, and enters the first shop he sees, the bell chiming as he enters. 

It’s a candle shop, tells the various smells immediately assaulting his senses. Jason instantly relaxes his posture, runs a hand through his hair to change it’s style, and drops his hand with the jacket below sight lines and behind shelves. 

To outside observers, you wouldn’t be able to tell he’s the same man. This, Jason thinks, is what makes him good at what he does. He wears different personas nearly as easily as he does clothing. They’re his armour just as much as his high-grade Kevlar as.

He picks up a candle and sniffs it. Right now, he’s an innocent consumer in a shop with too many smells. This one smells faintly of vanilla.

The bells tings and he counts three pairs of footsteps entering the shop, not even pretending to look around. The woman at the register lets out an indignant noise at their blatant rudeness. Jason doesn’t look up as he sets the candle back down and moves on to another one. He gets a face full of cinnamon rolls as he listens to the patter of feet searching the shop. Black suits dot his peripheral vision. One in particular brushes right by him as he sticks his nose further in the candle. They stop just to the left of him, Jason’s careful not to tense, mentally cursing his distinctive hair, and they move on. 

He would let out a breath if that wouldn’t be a dead giveaway.

After one short minute, the bell rings as they empty out again. His smirk and glittering eyes are hidden by the white birthday cake candle he’s hiding behind. 

_Idiots._

The lady manning the register huffs in exasperation after they leave, “People these days,” she mutters.

People these days.

Jason sticks around the candle shop a little bit longer, just to be sure they’re gone, smelling various candles, and smiles politely at the lady behind the register as he leaves without buying anything. He leaves the shop with his thumbs in his belt loops, jacket back on. He hates the cold. It stings his eyes anyway as he walks down the street opposite of the agents who have long since past him.

 _SHIELD_ , he thinks. _Nice to meet you._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. This one took a while. It’s also longer, lol. Enjoy!

Jason needs to buy a new computer. He can’t actually access any of the information he obtained without one. But he doesn’t want to risk any hidden bugs on the data hijacking a brand new computer, so he sits and thinks it through. Where could he access a computer without buying it? Better yet, where others could access it too?

A library, he thinks.

He abruptly realizes he can’t look up where to find one. 

He sighs, glancing up at dreary, overcast sky, fingers freezing in his pockets, and wonders what his life has come to when he can’t even think through getting the right amount of technology the first go. 

He hasn’t bought a phone yet, and doesn’t want to be caught at the same place he bought his first computer, so he kind of just… roams the streets for a tech store. 

It starts to snow, flakes drifting into his hair and melting on his face.

He is not warm enough for this shit. 

So instead of finding a tech store, a place that will inevitably end up just as cold as the outdoors, he turns the corner and crosses the street with a crowd of people instead of just going on his merry way. He walks two blocks before he comes across another thrift store, this one slightly larger than the one he went to the day before. 

As he is scavenging the shelves for a damn scarf (having already found a beanie), he passes by a rack of suits. He stops, eyeing the scarf stand, sighs, and turns around. 

He hasn’t looked at the blueprints for the nearby SHIELD facilities yet (seeing as he needs to purchase more equipment), but he knows this isn’t the kind of job where you can brute force your way in. 

So: disguise. He needs a suit. The problem with that, he thinks, is that he isn’t exactly average sized. He needs a fitting, but not _big_ , suit. And he’s at a thrift store.

He looks through the racks anyways. He’s done worse with less. He eventually settles on a black suit whose jacket is too wide in the hip and whose pants are too tight in the thigh, but he figures that an average class SHIELD citizen wouldn’t have an exact suit. He makes sure to get a button-up shirt too, but eventually decides against formal shoes. 

He finally gets his damn scarf before he leaves, though.

\-----

It takes him an hour to find another tech store, deal with customer service, get a new laptop and phone, and leave. 

On the retreat back to the coffee shop (because wifi), he stops by a drug store for black hair dye. It got all magicked away when Death spoke to him and portaled him here and the white strip isn’t exactly discreet (or wanted).

He enters the café, nodding at the barista, the same one as the first two days. He takes the same seat, too.

He boots up the laptop and sighs. He should probably encrypt and put up firewalls for, well-- _everything._ At the very least location and his IP address, anyways. 

He gets to it, sipping at his tea intermediately. A couple of hours later, and Jason’s just about done looking at code. The café has been a rotation of people, their chatter and the City that Never Sleeps a muted backdrop to his programming. 

Time to look at his bounty.

\-----

Rooftops at daytime. 

The notion was odd on his shoulders, and at first he thought it was because he was so used to rooftops at _nighttime_ , but then he realized it was because the SHIELD building was taller than most of the ones around it. And it was Times Square. There are more cameras, phones, and blinking lights in that little corner of New York alone than crazies in Gotham. He’d be a fish in a barrel. 

So instead of hopping roof to roof, he broke into a building across the street from the bottom and worked his way up three stories. He’s already spent a day observing the patterns of the facility’s lobby and planning, but every other window in the whole goddamn building is one-way. He can’t see inside besides the one point.

Now he’s here, watching again in his new-not-new suit, whose collar ends up covering the low scar on his throat. In fifteen minutes he’s going to sneak out of the building the same way he broke in, walk a block away, circle back, and enter the SHIELD facility as if he belongs there. 

In Times Square. In daytime.

How very different than waiting on rooftops across from some abandoned warehouse just to viciously announce his presence to the latest ring of thugs he’s taking down. 

Jason is _not_ going in empty-handed. He has a chest holster for his gun like apparently all the spooks do, plus knives hidden under his clothes. And his Ankh, but frankly, he hasn’t worked with it enough-- at all-- for it not to be a possible liability. He stuffs a pair of gloves in a jacket pocket.

The trick is not accidentally killing someone before his instincts do. ...Should he get into a fight.

He does _not_ want to be on SHIELD’s kill on sight list. In fact, the plan is to not engage anyone at all. 

(But it certainly doesn’t hurt to be prepared.)

Fifteen minutes later, he’s walking out of the building in a little alleyway, slipping sunglasses on his face. Merging into the crowd is easier than putting on socks in the morning.

He runs over the plan in his head. SHIELD is good. Really, really good. Jason downloaded the building plans and security systems off the harddrive, but he’s sure that there is stuff left out. (He left the rest of the information to look through later, after he gets whatever he can from the SHIELD facility.) As it is, the second their software recognizes that his face isn’t supposed to be there, the place will go on alert and his timer to get out will start. So, he needs to delay that timer as long as possible. 

He’ll walk in, lift a keycard off some poor sap, and get past the access doors inside the building. He’ll take the stairs to the second level, enter the elevator, and take that to the twenty-first level. His key card should have access as long as he’s not foolish enough to take it from some Level 1 mook. If they have retinal scans then he’ll… improvise. From there, he’ll take the hallway to his immediate left, take the second hallway on the right, and then it’s the second to last door to the left where he’ll find the server room. He’ll plug in his hard drive, get to hacking, and borrow (steal) as much information as possible about anything and everything that could be useful to him, all without making a _true_ enemy of SHIELD. 

Easy peasy. 

He probably just jinxed it.

Billboards flash goodbye at him as he walks in the SHIELD facility and out from the city street, head tilted away from the cameras. The space is clean and modern, all monotones with a glass eagle of the SHIELD logo in the foyer. The windows aren’t one-way from this side, Jason can immediately tell, and a mix of sunlight and bright colors stream through them. Agents go this way and that, nearly identical in their suits. 

He turns his head, as if his attention is caught by something, and bumps into a suit that looks enough like him at a glance. 

Jason lips quirk sheepishly while he stabilizes himself against them, mouthing, “Sorry.”

The SHIELD agent just shakes his head, eyes vaguely irritated, “No problem.”

They go their separate ways. Jason looks down at the card in his hand: John Peterson, Level 5. It’ll do. He was hoping for Level 6, but. It’ll do.

He flashes the card across the access scanner and it beeps green. He goes through the gate, nodding at the two agents behind the desk whose eyebrows are raised at the scans the metal detector brought up, and heads up the stairs. 

So far, so good. 

He uses the card again to enter the elevator, and again to access the twenty first floor. (“John Peterson: recognized.”) He’s almost surprised it let him up. (Even more surprised that there was no retinal scanner.) 

It brings him to the twenty first floor without any trouble, the elevator ride silent for lack of elevator music. The doors slide open and Jason starts off down the hallway to his left.

For the most part, the SHIELD building seems like any other office, albeit with the occasional suit carrying a gun. But there are techs, scientists, and everyone in between too. The field agents stand out in their synchronizing suits amongst the professional, yet unique clothing the non-field agents wear. Something seems to be going on, an unusual spike of rushing and raised voices in the hall and between rooms.

No one spares Jason a second glance.

He passes the busy offices, turning once he reaches the second hallway on his right. It’s a series of more offices and he finally nears the end of the hallway, discreetly glancing up and down the hall to look for wandering eyes, and he strolls into the server room like he belongs there.

The room is large, filled with server banks, and as he ghosts further in the room, a single computer in the center with a camera smack in front of it. Well. He knows he still isn’t likely to gain access to the most classified projects and information, but there is plenty that this computer can give him. And-- there’s a good thirty percent chance they have his face already. He’s careful, but he’s not perfect, and New York has a lot of cameras between streets, shops, and cellphones. 

So he strolls right up to the computer, a black screen with a rotating silver SHIELD logo, and he smirks at the camera as he takes the seat in front of it. He calculates that it’ll be about three minutes until they realize he’s not supposed to be here, and absolutely no more than ninety seconds after that until they have agents in the room. He’ll be long gone by then.

Jason fishes his hard drive out of a pocket in his jacket and plugs it into a USB port on the side of the computer. The folder opens up and Jason pauses for a second, deciding where to start.

Aliens. Jason starts by searching SHIELD for proof of extraterrestrial contact. He wastes a precious thirty seconds on it, and all he gets is old mythology attached to something called the Tesseract. He uses another half minutes to download anything he can find on that; reading all the information will come later. 

As his eyes skim it, however, there’s that term again-- Hydra. He decides it might as well be worth it to get more information on that, too. Twenty seconds later, Jason realizes he could probably spend hours searching information on the organization. He wastes three seconds to decide to use another twenty to download more relevant-- or classified-- information. 

From what he gathers in his very, very brief skimming while downloading, Hydra, a breakaway group of Nazi origins, was nasty and technologically advanced. The two organizations’ history is all tangled together, so it’s no wonder that SHIELD gained such deep intel on the opposing group when it collapsed. 

He lets out a breath and refocuses. With seventy seven seconds left until agents figure out he’s here, Jason decides to gather more intelligence on the Avengers Initiative and it’s candidates.

Which is, apparently, too high a classification for even this computer. Sixty seven seconds, his brain helpfully supplies while he tries to decide if he can hack in in time. No, his brain helpfully answers. 

Okay-- known candidates: Romanoff, Barton, Coulson. 

He starts with Coulson, who Jason recalls is connected to both the former agents. His eyes flicker over the man’s info, downloading it as he reads. Recruited before Jason was born, a brief incident in the ‘90s, and Director Fury’s right hand man. 

Wait. _Director_ Fury? Huh. Jason despairs at the choice of having to leave that information alone for now, and instead thinks of the ramifications of stealing intelligence on the man as Jason’s brain supplies thirty seconds.

Ah-- well. If it makes him a higher priority target, then so be it. He’s Batman and League of Assassins trained. Jason can disappear as if he never was if he needs to, and it's all the easier seeing how he doesn’t exist and all. 

Twenty five seconds.

He definitely doesn’t have time to get extensive info on either of the remaining agents’ profiles. He skips past what he’s already put on the hard drive, and downloads quite literally anything he finds interesting on the agents. 

He closes the folders and ejects the hard drive with three seconds left. He waves by at the camera, turns out the door, and smoothly slips himself back in the hallway right as a female voice announces over the intercom, “Intruder in the twenty first floor server room. Repeat. Intruder in the twenty first floor server room. Priority Level 5.”

Where agents were busy before, they are absolutely chaotic now. Exactly nobody realizes Jason doesn’t belong, and it takes barely any effort to lift another card off a similar-looking agent. (This one reads Jacob Marrow, Level 4. It’s a downgrade, but the first one he lifted is potentially compromised.)

He approaches the elevator, trying not to rush. He flashes his second stolen card, the elevator number telling him an elevator is on it’s way down. When the elevator door opens, a suit’s already there. Jason walks in, thinking it would be suspicious if he waited for the next one. They nod at each other and Jason can see that the elevator is already destined for the ground floor. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t test his lifted identity with another agent in the same room.

“Busy day,” the man says, glancing at him. His dark blue-gray eyes appear disinterested, but-- there. A keen intelligence rests behind them, studying Jason like he’s looking for any and all of his secrets. It takes Jason approximately two and a half seconds to register that he literally _just_ read this man’s files. 

Agent Coulson.

Fuck.

Jason smiles lightly and nods in agreement (he’s noticed the unusual level of activity, but has absolutely no idea what it’s about, not to mention what he throws in the mix), his own seeking eyes hidden behind the sunglasses he’s still wearing. 

“Where are you headed?” 

_Nosey._ Jason opens his mouth. Closes it. He grimaces, signing, “Ground floor.”

Coulson makes a soft, “Oh.” Then, shocking Jason, (though he’d never show nor admit it), he turns further towards him, signing back, “Sorry. I can sign if you prefer?” His face is a bit impassive to gaining any intent behind the signs.

Jason shakes his head. It still takes him a second to translate it all in his head, and he can hear just fine. 

(Unless it’s quiet. His ears ring when it’s silent and that makes it one of the easiest times to sneak up on him. Unless someone is just _ridiculously_ loud. People who try to kill him tend to be silent on their feet, though.

Or it’s a noisy place and someone isn’t being loud enough or he’s not looking at them as they talk to him. Or… And now that he thinks about it, maybe he does have a little trouble hearing. He mentally shrugs it off; he’s doing just fine. As now proven, the Lazarus pit _heals_ everything, it just doesn’t _fix_ everything. It’s just what being bashed in the head and having a bomb go off in your ear will do to someone.

He decides to summarily ignore all these thoughts, filing them away for later. _Way_ later, when he doesn’t have a million and one things going on.) 

Jason pulls down the collar of his suit, showing his scar as explanation.

The man doesn’t even look phased. Jason wonders just how much shit he’s seen for that to be his reaction. “Nasty,” Coulson says, forgoing signs.

Jason nods again.

They continue the elevator ride. He wonders, briefly, why there’s no elevator music. It makes the ride _so_ much more awkward. 

“You know,” the agent starts, voice almost easy, and eyes completely guarded, “there was an intruder spotted on the floor you’re coming from.”

Jason moves his face somewhere between apologetic and irritated at the accusation (if he is playing the role of an agent, that is) and lifts his hands to sign, “Just got sent on a mission. Pretty time restrictive. I’m running late.” Jason kindly does not point out that Coulson is on the elevator with him (though not coming from the same floor.)

Coulson nods, smiles politely. “Of course.”

_Come on, just seven floors to go._

Those seven floors, thank fuck, are spent remaining in stilted silence. 

The elevator doors slide open with nothing more than a soft whir, and it takes a considerable amount of will for Jason to not bolt off the lift. Because of course it’s just his luck to be trapped in a metal box with the same man he just stole information on. Instead, Jason nods his head respectably goodbye as he steps out just ahead of Coulson. 

He’s just turning his back on the man, when he hears him call out a polite, “Excuse me.”

Jason stops, briefly closes his eyes, and turns to the agent, an eyebrow raised in question. 

“I didn’t catch your name.” Coulson’s eyes are patient, waiting almost. For what, though, is the question.

“J. M-A-R-R-O-W,” Jason spells out, then repeats with the sign for M and bone in an impromptu spur of thought that his persona would have probably been given a sign name. 

Coulson holds out a hand, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Marrow.” Jason returns the grip easily. “I’m Agent Coulson.”

“Nice meeting you,” Jason replies with a gesture of his arms.

Coulson nods goodbye, eyes glinting and guarded; whatever curiosity that was in them was wiped smoothly away.

Jason finally turns, leaving the facility a little absently and yet way too grounded without incident, passing agents whose panic was hidden under poor masks. He somehow feels like he was the one who lost the meeting with the SHIELD agent that he’s all too likely going to meet again.

He lets out a breath, the harsh colors and noises of the city immediately assaulting his senses.

Lovely.

At least he got what he came for.

Just fucking lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names from the cards J lifted are totally made up, btw. Marrow is the last name of one of my Sims. 
> 
> And, hey, Coulson! He totally knows ASL.
> 
> Thanks for reading and leaving comments! I probably won’t always respond, but I do read them!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hazzah! I got it done, woo. Thank you all for the comments and kudos!

Jason spends the next two days entirely dedicated to reading his lifted information in what he’s dubbed his favourite coffee shop. 

By far, the Tesseract is the most interesting thing he’s read about.

It’s an energy source. It’s a weapon. And it is most definitely alien. 

Of course, knowing that isn’t all that helpful. 

SHIELD has tried to harness its energy, but has been by and far largely unsuccessful. A Project PEGASUS seemed to have almost achieved what they wanted, but the project was terminated after the deaths surrounding it. The whole file is irritatingly vague and redacted, even on the internal servers. The most successful attempts at weaponizing the Tesseract seem to be credited to Hydra, which is a little disappointing on SHIELD’s behalf.

If he wants any more alien information, he's going to have to continue syphoning information off SHIELD, he realizes. He sits with that for a minute, his future in this unknown universe looming ahead of him. He’s absolutely sure what he has only touches the tip of the iceberg. (It’s a pretty big iceberg, though.)

Jason finds the miniscule tracker halfway through the second day, which is a sad testament to his skills (but a credit to Coulson’s). But that leads to a whole another set of questions. 

Primarily, why hadn’t they tried to apprehend him yet? 

They’re tracking his movements, he realizes again. _(His poor coffee shop,_ he thinks distantly.) Why?

He snorts. He infiltrated SHIELD successfully and got away, that’s why. There are several other answers to that particular question, but Jason focuses on the fact that they’re probably observing him. Maybe to see if he meets up with someone or to see if he does anything else particularly dangerous or illegal. So at the very least, he’s not public enemy number one. The _do_ know where he is, though. 

Alright, he thinks slowly. He can work with that. 

He can work with that. 

Jason stares at the screen of his computer, classified information pulled up and waiting for him. The Tesseract. The Avengers Initiative. 

He runs through the information in his head. The Tesseract is alien. SHIELD would deal (or already does deal) with aliens. Jason somehow met Coulson, who could tell with enough suspicion that Jason didn’t belong, and had enough skill to hide a tracker on him. SHIELD knows where he is and has yet to act on that information. 

How can he use that to his advantage?

SHIELD. When it comes down to it, Jason needs SHIELD. And it would be a lot easier to not have to hack or break his way in to gain information. It’d be a lot easier if he was there from the start.

So why not bring SHIELD to him?

This could be a terrible idea.

\-----

He goes out the next two nights, does a little bit of old school vigilante-ing. The mask feels comforting, the routine of it settling over him like a balm he didn’t know he needed. 

He generously doesn’t kill anyone. It wouldn’t do anyone any favors, though his trigger happy self itches to aim his guns. He might get a little aggressive, _maybe_ , with the particular kind of people who hurt kids or women walking home, but then, who could blame him?

The third night, he gets a tail.

It’s a prickle on the back of his neck; the instinctive knowledge of knowing someone is watching or following creeps into his mind.

When he can, he tries to discreetly eye the rooftops behind him, but whoever is trailing him is a credit to their craft. He doesn’t spot them.

Jason’d be disappointed otherwise.

In the meantime, during the days, he goes over the rest of his pillaged information. He crafts a sort-of plan, but he’s lying to himself if he claims it’s anything but flimsy.

The other information remains largely unhelpful. (Increasingly interesting, but largely unhelpful. The files he grabbed on Barton and Romanoff contain nothing personal, a win and a lose, and instead include mission reports. Coulson’s get a little more specific, but again, nothing much in the way of learning how they operate.)

The night after arrives, and he has a tail again within the hour. 

He crouches on the edge of some rooftop, an echo in his ear warning him of the dangers of doing so, and scans the alleyway below.

It’s dark, dank, utterly empty, and the cold stings his eyes, nose, and ears, while nipping at his gloved fingers.

Goddamned winter. 

The sound of rebounded laughter and loud talk reaches his ears over the heavy night noises of the city and his attention is drawn to the mouth of the alley. 

A man and a young woman come stumbling into the alley, clearly inebriated. The woman is giggling at something the man said, their weight almost entirely supported by each other as their jewelry glints as they move from side to side. For any of the other ways this scene could have played out, they do just genuinely seem to be taking the alley as a shortcut through the block, albeit drunkenly.

Of course, that’s when three more people enter the alley. 

They look like your typical street thug-- ratty, dark clothes, too much stubble, and walking with a menace that in all likelihood they couldn’t pull off with anyone with more skills than the average cookie cutter. 

These poor people were average cookie cutters.

Jason tilted his head to the side, popping it, tensing as he got ready, and an eye on the scene below. 

Catcalls leered down the alley and the couple stopped, looking back at the thugs who were now blocking off the entrance to the nearest street. 

“Hey, sweet thing! Why don’t you let me take a peek at those jewels?” Lead Thug calls out, his voice a deep baritone.

And that was Jason’s que. He hopped down to the top rung of the fire escape, the clang echoing to the people below. And he did it again and again through the stairs, catching the people’s attention. 

“‘Ey! This ain’t your fight man!” Thug Two calls, distinguishable by a gravelly chain-smoker voice. He’s probably older than he looked from above.

He almost opens his mouth to reply when he realizes he can’t. Instead, he just drops down between the two groups, a gun in his right hand and head cocked, eyebrows raised. He doubts they can see it much in the dark, but he’s not one not to go full out. 

Thugs one through three (as many as there are) pull their own guns. Two are aimed at him, but Thug Two apparently has some semblance of brains and instead points his at the couple behind Jason. 

Lead Thug looks Jason up and down with his whole head, probably eyeing the gun that practically materialized in his left hand and the swiftness in which it was pulled. “Last chance, man,” he tells him in his deep New Yorker accent. 

Even if Jason was inclined to take him up on the offer, they don’t actually give him much of a chance. The asshole on the right (Thug Three) fires at him before Lead Thug has even finished his sentence. The gunshot echoes through the alleyway, followed closely by the screams of the terrified couple behind him. 

Jason’s in action as the bullet whizzes past him on his left. Jason returns fire, his own very real bullet hitting Three in the thigh. He goes down with a scream, gun clattering to the ground. The gun in Jason’s left hand fires at Lead Thug, who has just enough sense to move swiftly enough to avoid the bullet hitting anyplace important. He screams as it grazes him, but doesn’t drop like Thug Three. By now, Thug Two has advanced, and a bullet whizzes dangerously close past Jason’s left ear. 

He’d probably be sporting a bruise on his ribs if Two had decided to aim for his chest; he apparently has not half-bad aim. Probably came with the age. You didn’t get this far in the common criminal life without being some form of competent. (--Completely wasted competency. If someone can get this good with a gun, they could pick up a desk job-- but, who’s Jason to talk?)

He refires at Lead Thug and Thug Two more to keep at bay than anything (they have now taken refuge behind a dumpster), and backs up in front of the couple, who are shivering, frozen in shock. He gestures to them towards the vague direction of the other dumpster, gun still in hand, and the woman flinches out of her shock. Her eyes briefly take in the scene in front of her, then she tugs the man behind the dumpster with one hand while the other pulls out a phone. Jason hears the stereotypical, “911, What’s your emergency…” as the two remaining thugs start taking potshots at them. 

Right. 

The alleyway has run out of dumpster to hide behind, and he has his armour anyways (that does _not_ mean that Jason wants to be shot, however). Instead, he jumps off the wall and onto the dumpster the couple is hiding behind, and then from there back onto the fire escape above for a better shot. A shout, and bullets trail after him in his wake.

They’re almost out.

Jason grunts silently in frustration when he reaches the other end of the fire escape. There isn’t a clean shot on the Thugs that aren’t potentially fatal. Not that he necessarily minds killing them, but he’s trying to behave. (Funny, how he’ll _stop_ murdering for his own gain, but all the pleading in the world wouldn’t do Bruce any good, no? a little voice niggles.)

Another gunshot rings out over the quiet near-sobbing of the woman on the phone and the groans of pain from Thug Three and Jason can actually feel the heat and wind as the bullet grazes through his hair. 

This guy’s aim in erring on dangerous. _Ah, fuck it._

Two more gunshots ring out in the alley after Jason lifts his arms and fires. Two more scumbags end up dead with not so much as a scream. Two innocent lives are saved.

There’s a third asshole in the alley moaning over his gunshot wound, but Jason doesn’t pay him much mind as he creeps back over to the other side of the fire escape. He looks down at the couple from above.

They’re pale, shaking, and the woman has one hand with the phone up to her ear with the other in the guy’s hand. They’ll be fine, give or take.

He makes his way back up the fire escape, silently this time, when his senses realert themselves to his tail. 

_Ah, fuck,_ he thinks, but the presense never comes any closer than they did before. It’s there for the rest of the night, he knows, but Jason doesn’t take any more kill shots. He’s done enough damage.

\-----

Jason comes out of the bedroom of the apartment he had been staying at in a hoodie and sweats (look, he was tired of sleeping in the same pair), yawning, to find Coulson standing in the kitchen-dining-living area with a bland smile on his face. Jason has his gun raised, aimed, and off safety before his hairs raise and he wishes to hell and back he carried a second on him to sleep. A second guy, a blonde, comes out of the shadows with a bow and arrow aimed at him (his _shoulder_ , nonlethal, he assesses), like some rip-off Green Arrow. 

Jason feels like he researched him. It takes his rapidly awakening tired brain a second. This is _Hawkeye_ , Clint Barton. _Damn. There’s no such thing as a coincidence,_ he thinks. Barton’s younger than he would have thought, but probably older than Jason by a few years. 

It’d be an interesting fight.

The suit pins him with those piercing, intelligent gray-blue eyes, clearing his throat. Jason resists the urge to straighten. “As you know, I’m Agent Phil Coulson, and I work for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. We’re here to bring you in for questioning.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was rewritten at least twice. Once because it was written before Chapter 4 and another cause I wasn’t satisfied. Speaking of— The original take of this will be put on the alt./deleted scenes compilation tomorrow if you want to read it. Jason talks!

Jason stares at Coulson. Coulson stares at him. Barton’s there, his own piercing eyes never leaving Jason. Unlike Coulson, Barton is not in a ridiculous and impractical two-piece suit, but some sort of light-weight purple, gray, and black kevlar, similar to Jason’s own. A uniform. A costume. A different kind of suit.

(Jason can also see the vague outline of bandages on the right side of Barton’s chest. There are visible stark white bandages on his bare left forearm, which is just impractical for the safety of his limbs-- evidence by the bandages.)

Jason raises an eyebrow, tilting his head at Barton, playing ignorance.

“Hawkeye,” Coulson answers to the silent question. 

Jason nods, assessing the situation. Well. He knew it was going to happen. Now it is. Jason clicks the safety back on (with reluctance) and returns it to it’s hiding spot on himself. Eyes track the movement the entire time. He sighs silently, rolling out his shoulders as the tension in the room knocks down a notch. If the two agents were surprised by his quick acquiescence, they didn’t show it. Face posed curiously, eyebrows quirked, he signs, “Whatever for?”

Barton doesn’t so much as twitch when Jason signs, but his eyes flicker to his ears, temples, then down to the prominent scar on his throat. 

Coulson’s resting bland face is impressive. “Breaking and entering, theft of government information, and murder.”

Ah. In all likelihood the latter is why they’re here, now, and not when they got a positive location from the tracker. He had no reason to even touch a SHIELD agent, though. Something about the look in both the men’s eyes tells him that they know it, and that’s why they’re here and Jason’s not dead in a ditch.

“You’re being awfully nice about it,” Jason replies, partially amused and partially distantly concerned for the man.

Coulson still has that bland smile on his face. Jason vaguely wonders if it hurts to have it plastered on all the time. “We’d like your cooperation. If you don’t cooperate, well, that’s what Hawkeye is for.”

Jason pulls on his most agreeable face, shoulders and the rest of his body following suit. Jason raises his hands and asks with as much politeness as he can muster, which admittedly is not a lot, but the facade helps, and asks, “Can I at least get dressed first?” 

“Are you going to run away, arm yourself, or otherwise do anything detrimental to your situation?”

Detrimental to his situation is a very loose parameter to follow. In context, even, he’s not lying when he replies, “No.” (And he isn’t lying. He doesn’t plan on doing anything. But still, those are very loose guidelines.)

Somehow, Coulson doesn’t believe him. Or at least doesn’t trust him, which Jason supposes is fair. Coulson looks him up and down, for the first time visibly assessing him. Jason hadn’t realized that the man hadn’t. Or he had, and Jason hadn’t noticed. That-- Jason’s begrudgingly impressed. Finally, Coulson glances to Barton. “Take Hawkeye with you.”

At this directive, Barton lowers his arms and sheathes his arrow. Jason feels just slightly less tense without a weapon pointed at him.

With a pang, Jason misses his rapidfire sarcasm and scathing words. His retort sits there on his tongue, unbidden. He tries, anyway, moving his arms with a smirk on his face that he doesn’t quite feel, but slips on like another mask, “You don’t even know my name. Isn’t it a little early to watch me get undressed?” Though, honestly, he wasn’t expecting to be able to change at all.

Barton raises an eyebrow, talking for the first time with the question, “Do you _have_ a name?” There’s a subtle implication there, like he’s asking for a sign name or a lengthy fingerspelling.

Ouch. Jason very nearly signs the name the kids in Gotham gave him, the sign for red followed by an H, pressed against his chest where his insignia lay on instinct reaction. But-- It doesn’t seem right, not here, to these strangers. Jason shrugs after a brief pause, fingerspelling, “J,” with a flick of his wrist.

“Hawkeye,” Barton says, signing a bird while moving his arms as if he’s drawing back a bow in lieu of fingerspelling. 

Which brings up its own set of questions. 

Jason nods in understanding, mimicking the sign to make sure he has it, and glances at the bedroom. _Great._ He might as well get it over with. He turns with a spin, gesturing to Barton over his shoulder to follow.

Coulson calls out, “Five minutes,” behind them.

His hairs prickle with having someone behind him, but he figures if SHIELD was going to try to kill him by now, they would have.

Barton follows him into the small room, not much more than a dingy mattress and his clothes either thrown or folded in a corner.

“I’m going to need to take your weapons.” _Yeah_ , Jason had figured as much.

He takes the gun out of his waistband and hands it to the agent. He goes over to the folded pile where his armoured pants and leather jacket lay there idly. Jason glances at Barton once. He’s inspecting the gun, but when he feels Jason’s gaze on him, he looks up at him. 

“All of them,” he says pointedly, eyes tracing Jason’s figure and lingering on most of the spots Jason had hid his knives last night.

(Yes, he slept with knives. But they were sheathed, so no harm no foul, right? He was limiting himself severely with only _one_ gun.)

Jason considers signing ‘good eye’, but he rather feels that the effort would be waste. He spends a good three seconds debating this, then realizes he’s stalling.

Ah, fuck, he can do this. 

He shucks off his sweatpants, scars and knives on display. He calmly (and with absolutely no panic, none whatsoever and certainly not where Barton can see) hands over the knives and their sheathes. He slips on his gray armoured pants, the only pair he has besides his sweats. 

Barton, somehow, is making all of Jason’s weapons disappear on his person. He also looks unimpressed. “The rest of them.”

Jason smiles sharply, but refrains from adding too many teeth. _Cooperative,_ he tells himself, _he needs to be cooperative._ He shoves up the sleeve of the hoodie and unstraps the two knives on his forearms. 

Barton takes the knives and attaches them to his belt, the first of all the knives Jason had handed over to be done so. His eyes flicker to Jason’s right bicep where Jason knows there is another knife hiding, completely undetectable. He doesn’t ask for it.

In counter to what Barton was probably intendeding, the secession puts Jason on edge. He still doesn’t hand over the knife, though he tries to watch Barton more closely. The man, in turn, is studying him heavily too. His gaze hadn’t lingered on any of his scars, though Jason noted that he had cataloged them. His eyes flicker over the Ankh, a little curious, or maybe he’s just having a visible tell to fuck with him. Based on his mission reports, he seems like the type.

Jason shoves down his sleeves either way, then grabs his leather jacket. He slips it on, the drops to the bed to tie on his shoes. Unexpectedly, Barton sits himself down across from him, along the opposite wall. 

Jason raised an eyebrow in question. 

“You know, I haven’t known a lot of people to break into -- or hack -- SHIELD, just to immediately comply with arrest. Or questioning,” he tacks on, probably recalling Coulson’s words.

It’s not a question, except it is. A test too, probably. He’s in a room alone with Barton, and despite what he said, Jason still had the potential to attack him. It would have been easier to face one SHIELD agent in close quarters -- even specialized ones -- than to take two on long range. (Across a room isn’t long range, exactly, but both had weapons that could fire at Jason before he could down them with his own.)

Jason thinks through his answer. It’s easier to do that, he muses bitterly, when he can’t say the first thing that comes to mind. ASL is not quite instinctive for him (--yet).

“Maybe I think SHIELD is my best bet,” he signs after a moment. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either. 

“The super secret shady government organization that you stole classified information from?”

Yep, that sounds about right. He nods in agreement as he starts lacing up his left boot. (And, sure, he is effectively admitting to being guilty, but they all know he did it, and it’s not like he’s trying to keep it secret.) 

“That must make whoever you’re running from pretty damn awful.”

Jason’s eyes flicker up. Barton still has his eyes glued on him, fingers absentmindedly tapping and tracing shapes on his bow. Or not so absentmindedly, because Jason still thinks there’s a fifty percent chance he’s screwing with him.

He finishes tying his shoe and doesn’t answer.

“Yeah, no, don’t tell me about it. Wasn’t really expecting you to, anyway. Coulson’s gonna want to know, though. Hey, kid,” Jason glances up where he’s tying his other shoe, but he doesn’t retort because he’d have to start over. Barton’s impassive face has changed, and he’s looking at him imploringly, like whatever he’s about to say is damn important and Jason better listen. “Coulson’s a good guy. He listens, and he cares, and he won’t treat you like shit even if you’re being shitty. And, yeah, _sure_ , you’re being arrested-- brought in for questioning, _whatever_ , but Coulson has had his eyes on you for almost a week. You’re probably not going to stay arrested for long, provided you cooperate.”

Jason finishes tying his other shoe as the words are said. He doesn’t really have an answer. Even if what Barton said was true, Coulson’s not all of SHIELD. But he knows how these agencies work. If they can get someone like Jason to work for them, at least he’s working for what they’re feeding him, instead of rotting away in a prison cell. So he shrugs a nonanswer and stands.

Barton follows him up. “Yeah, I’m not really surprised you don’t believe me. My partner, Nat-- Agent Romanoff, she didn’t believe me either. Of course, I was sent to assassinate her, not apprehend her, but,” he shrugs, “semantics. You’ll be fine, kid.”

“Provided I cooperate,” Jason signs wryly, face posed in disbelief, “and I’m not a kid.”

“Provided you cooperate. And you can’t even be old enough to drink, ergo: kid.”

Jason’s about to respond because he’s _not_ a kid, and he hasn’t been one in a long time, when Coulson calls out, “Time!”

Barton opens the door, gesturing for Jason to go first. He sees Coulson, and they head out of the building. Jason remembers all the rest of his stuff in that rooftop apartment-- his armoured top, his mask, the rest of his weapons. He wonders if he’ll see it all again. 

For now, though, it’s time to face the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thank you all so much for reading and leaving comments and kudos!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers! You know, these are actually all unbetaed? If you see an errors, point them out! Constructive criticism is welcome too.

Jason had been in the white interrogation room for two very long, very boring hours. He passed the time by counting the hidden cameras (four), staring piercingly through the one-way glass, unlocking and relocking his handcuffs rhythmically, and trying to figure out how much British Sign Language he knew. (The answer was the alphabet and the most basic signs like ‘yes’ and ‘no’.) He figures it is five minutes past that two hour mark when Coulson walks in, folder in hand.

He sits down across from him, face impassive.

“Busy?” Jason signs. He bets fifty-fifty on Coulson being busy versus them trying to psyche him out. (If so, he doesn’t really know why they bothered.)

Coulson doesn’t give him an answer, and instead slides in the seat opposing him and puts the folder on the table. He doesn’t even blink at the open handcuffs. “Sorry that took so long. Water?”

“Can’t answer your questions with water in my hands,” he signs.

“So that’s a no?”

“It’s a-- warning,” he replies, and Coulson does something with his hands that signals an agent outside to bring in a water bottle with the SHIELD logo on it. 

Jason takes it, looks it over. When he opens it, the seal cracks. He takes a sip, and it doesn’t taste any different, so he takes another.

“We’re not going to poison you.”

Probably not, no. But it certainly didn’t hurt to be sure. He shrugs in response.

“Anything else we can do for you? Are you hungry?”

Jason raises an eyebrow. Setting down the water, he raises his hands, “C-O-U-L-S-O-N,” he spells out, “enough of this standard interrogation shit. Ask your damn questions.”

Coulson doesn’t look even mildly offended or surprised. He just nods, and opens his folder. “What should I call you? Or do you simply prefer J?”

He’s surprised to learn _J_ doesn’t really bother him. Still, he spells out, “J-A-S-O-N.”

Coulson nods and writes it down on the top of a white page with Jason’s picture from his breaking and entering on it and some information that’s small enough that it’s a pain to read it upside down. It’s basic information mostly, general weight and height, suspected skills, and similar whatnot. The rest of the folder’s pages appear to be itemized lists of the information he stole and pictures of the two criminals he killed. 

“No last name?”

For some reason, that gives him pause. Jason Peter Todd, he thinks. Jason Peter Todd, son of Willis and Catherine Todd. Son of Sheila Haywood. Son and second Robin of Bruce Wayne, the Batman. A laundry list of disappointments, betrayals, and failed parents.

He shakes his head no, and he’s not sure why. He raises his hands to sign, “You won’t find me anywhere, anyways. I’m little more than a ghost.”

Coulson eyes him strangely. It takes Jason a moment to recognize it as distant amusement, like what Jason said is funny. From Coulson’s perspective, Jason doesn’t doubt that it is. Afterall, SHIELD is America’s premier intelligence agency.

The moment passes.

“And you’re over the age of eighteen?”

He snorts and signs, “Yeah.”

“Can you tell me where you were on February tenth?”

Here’s the thing: since coming back to life, Jason has had trouble with dates. First he was catatonic, then his time with the League that was spent in a technologyless loop, and when he got to Gotham, he studiously avoided actual _dates_. He tracks days, sure, but not dates. He hasn’t been sure of the exact date since the day he died, and that’s the way he likes it.

He isn’t really happy that that’s about to change. 

So, reluctantly, he signs, “How many days ago was that?”

Coulson raises his eyebrows faintly. “Ten.”

Jason nods. “Then I suppose I was in a nice little coffee shop, breezing my way through your servers. They’re not bad, but I’ve seen better.” Not in this universe, but the point is moot.

Coulson humms a small, noncommittal noise, and writes something akin to his confession on that page of his. 

“And-- three days after that?”

And Coulson picked up on it.

“Learning more government secrets and shaking your hand,” he gestures in response, somewhat flippantly, but the tone is lost when there isn’t one. He bites back a scowl when it falls flat.

He can tell that Coulson notices, but he doesn’t comment on it. “And the information you took, what did you do with it?”

He shrugs, “Read it.”

“On the computer in your apartment?”

Jason nods. They won’t find the info he stole, not yet anyways. The hard drive with all the information is in the sole of his boot.

“Our tech analysts didn’t find anything on it.”

“They wouldn’t,” he signs. Ah, damn. He gives Coulson a glance, and the man just watches him. Like he _knows_ that Jason isn’t done. It’s a little unnerving how keen the man is.

Or maybe Jason’s just that easy to read, but he doubts it. Still, the thought leaves him with a sticky feeling.

After another moment, he sighs and brings his leg up and bends down over the sole of his boot. He pries it open, revealing the harddrive, and takes it out. He looks it over, wishes he made a copy, and holds it out to the man.

Coulson is watching Jason’s face closely. His blue-gray eyes are pinched a little, hinting at the man’s curiosity. But he takes it without question, sticking it in a pocket somewhere in his suit jacket. “And what did you plan to do with this information?” _Did someone order you to? Did someone pay you to? Did you steal it with plans to sell it later? For your own gain?_ Questions in questions.

“I was curious.”

“You were curious?”

He shrugs again. “I wanted to see how good SHIELD was,” he signs. _Does SHIELD have a sign?_ He really doesn’t like spelling it out each time. Maybe he should ask or look up the sign, but-- later.

And his answer is not a lie, really, but nowhere near the forefront of his brain either when he was doing it. “And you should know aliens are real. It’s math,” (-ematically); it’s about context. He makes a face and signs out, “I-M-P-R-O-B-A-B-L-E for there not to be.”

Coulson humms faintly, but overall ignores his comment. “And where did you gain the skills to hack and break into a high security government facility?”

Maybe he didn’t think this though all the way. Honesty will only get him so far seeing as how all his answers belong to a different universe. SHIELD will want answers they can _find_.

( _\--Another universe_ , another universe. _Why is he impulsive, again? Death of half a universe, right--_ )

So, he goes with honesty anyways. It will read better, he knows. “From different people. A little from my,” here he hesitates slightly, his fingers almost unwilling to form the word, and he tampers down an insistent need to punch something, “dad. More-- _most_ from a few others, later. Most of whom are dead.”

And he doesn’t regret a single life taken from that line of scumbags. (A grand total of two trainers weren’t found dead, and one of them was Talia.)

“I see,” Coulson’s face remains stoic as ever, utterly unruffled that most of Jason’s trainers are dead. “Could you give your remaining trainers’ names and other relevant information-- including your father’s?”

Jason shrugs. The thought isn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it certainly isn’t cozy. And it really won’t help them. But, he spells, “B-R-U-C-E,” (And holy fuck he just admitted that Bruce Wayne, even if they don’t know who he is, trained him. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be, rather it leaves him with this kind of viscous, vindictive pleasure that makes him want to laugh), “and T-A-L-I-A are the only names I know. B and T had a thing once,” he adds, “T took me in after B. She made me better. Got me the other trainers.”

It’s a gross oversimplification, but he doesn’t really feel the need to divulge more.

Coulson, the odd semi-statue that he is, takes that with a nod, and doesn’t ask any more questions about how Jason acquired his skillset. “And were your trainers killed by your hand? Like these two men?” He slides over the pictures of the two criminals he killed last night.

He’s pretty confident he can escape whatever cell they might put him in. And he’s only a little less confident that they’re not going to put him in one. So with little remorse, he nods and signs, “Yes.”

“Why?” Coulson leans back in his chair, eyes still never leaving Jason.

“Assholes, each and every one,” he signs, “Murderers, rapists, human traffickers--” he’d had to relearn each of those signs after moving into the Manor. Apparently on the streets, they had signed them wrong; it was more a hodgepodge of letters and motions, whatever built the appropriate picture. (Did it really matter if it got the point across, he had argued with Bruce. Jason had refused to learn them properly for three weeks after.) After he returned to Gotham, he started using the ones he had learned on the streets again, so he’d be understood by the people there. His brain and fingers hiccup as he tries to use the _actual_ signs, and he nearly doesn’t bother. “And last night, it was the only option.”

“There’s always another option,” Coulson replies, straight faced and unbothered by his obvious stumbling, except-- There’s a twitch in his eyelid, barely anything, except it’s all he needs.

“Now you know that’s not true. Come on, C,” (Jason is not spelling out Coulson’s whole name everytime he wants to use it), “you’re a government spy.”

“I am. Which is why you’re here.” He pauses for a moment. “Do you regret it?” 

Coulson rather looks like he won’t care one way or the other, but Jason’s already decided to be honest, and honestly, not many people’s opinion on him really matters to him. Coulson included, though it’d probably be more beneficial if it was in his favour.

“No.”

Coulson nods, unsurprised. “And your most recent injuries?”

Jason represses a flinch and scowls. He was not expecting that. Under the table, he clenches and unclenches a fist. He almost snaps ‘none of your damn business’, and he’s sure the sentiement pases over his face, but he doesn’t. It’s silent for a good, long moment, and it probably gives away more than he intends, but he struggles to find his words. 

He tilts his head to the side and smiles. It isn’t a pleasant smile, he knows. It’s bitter, and sharp, and has too many teeth. “B gave them to me,” he signs sharply. He shakes his head, huffs, and vehemently, aggressively, tries to quell the green whispering in the corners of his head. “I gave him a choice. He made it. Nothing you should concern yourself about, C.”

Coulson’s eyes are pinched in the corners, brow slightly furrowed, and his lips have thinned a little. If Jason didn’t know any better, he’d say the man was angry. 

It’s the most emotion he’s shown the entire conversation. 

And like a switch, Jason’s anger leaves him, draining out and leaving him feeling heavy and empty. “Is that all?” he signs tiredly.

Coulson’s face has smoothed over. He nods once and the motion is slightly sharp, the only evidence that he still has feelings under that calm surface. He gathers everything back into the folder and stands. “I’ll be back shortly,” he tells Jason. His cool eyes sweep Jason once more before leaving the room. 

It’s quiet.

\-----

They don’t know what to think of him, Jason figures. He doesn’t exist. He has no known affiliates. Yet he was able to both hack and break into a high-security SHIELD compound and get out again. He was only caught because he wanted to be. He returned the information, didn’t sell it, and he was the only one who ever laid eyes on it.

He wonders when they’re going to ask. 

It’s been approximately another two hours since Coulson’s left when he gets his answer.

“Alright,” Coulson says as he sits across from Jason in the hard metal chairs the blank room provides, folders with the SHIELD logo stamped on them in his hands, “we have an offer for you.”

Jason raises an eyebrow.

“You can remain in SHIELD custody indefinitely--” Jason snorts-- “Or you can sign an agreement to work for SHIELD. Of course, you would need to go through our testing and vetting process first.”

Jason pauses his immediate response. Instead he asks, “I’m less than a ghost. I’ve killed without remorse. Why do you want me?”

“For those reasons. We need people like you. People who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty ridding filth from the world. People who can sneak into a SHIELD facility without being noticed. People like that are rare, and more valuable under our employ than sitting in a prison cell.”

He nearly scoffs. To go from being scorned for his skills to valued for them. He nods instead. It’s what he wants afterall. It’s the _plan_.

“Okay.” Coulson slides the folders over with a pen, “Let’s get started then.”

Jason opens the folder to find form after form after form asking for information. There’s a _lot_ to fill out. 

The first spot asks for his name. Like before, he hesitates before the box for his last name.

“I guess I need a last name, don’t I?” he signs, lifting his gaze from the papers.

Coulson nods, seemingly fine with his current lack of one.

He taps his fingers on the table, staring at the paper. He can be someone new. Not someone without the ugly history of Jason Todd because he won’t deny what made him, but someone…

Fuck, he doesn’t know. Just _different_. 

He stares at the paper for a long time. When he finally picks up the pen to write what he’s chosen, he glances at Coulson. He merely raises his eyebrows in answer to whatever question is on his face. The corner of Jason’s lip quirks as he writes himself into existence.

Jason Ashla. 

He likes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know why! And the name has meaning, I swear. You just gotta wait and find out. Or do the research dive I did. 
> 
> As always, thanks for the kudos and comments. They brighten my day and sometimes are really helpful!


	8. Chapter 8

Knocking on his SHIELD-issue door jerks him awake at the ass-crack of dawn, and he bolts out of the bed, his Ankh a knife in his hand. They didn’t return his weapons yesterday, (he still has the one Barton let him keep, though), and he stares at it blankly, before abruptly willing it back into a tattoo. He needs to work on that.

He shoves on his hoodie and yanks open his door, scowl firmly in place. It swings open to reveal Barton. His eyes have purple shadows and his posture is slightly slumped. It reminds Jason of an under caffeinated zombie.

Unfortunately for him, Jason doesn’t have much sympathy, being under caffeinated himself. He opens his mouth to bite out ‘what’, but when his throat closes around his words and pain lances down his throat, he scowl deepens and he signs it instead.

“Hey, man, don’t be snappy,” Barton returns in sign, “You’re due for your Psych Evals in an hour and authority figured you’d want breakfast so he sent me.”

Jason blinks. “Authority?”

“What,” Barton says out loud. “Authority,” he gestures again, “You know.”

“Hawkeye,” he signs, because he figures Barton has a personal sign name too, but this is the one he knows. As his brain starts to boot up, he continues, “Do you mean C-O-U-L-S-O-N?”

“Duh,” he says out loud and with his hands, staring at Jason like he is the one who’s crazy, “Who do you think I-- Oh.” He shakes his head, “I need coffee.”

Jason rolls his eyes and memorizes the sign for the future. “Let me get dressed,” he signs, then shuts the door in Barton’s face.

\------

Later, once Jason’s changed and they made their way to the cafeteria for breakfast and coffee, Jason decides to ask what’s been on his mind. 

He sets down his coffee (it’s shit, and he wants his tea,) and raises his hands, signing, “So does everyone in SHIELD know ASL? Or just everyone I’ve met?”

Barton blinks at him, nose deep in coffee. With very obvious reluctance, he sets the half drunk styrofoam cup down. “Ah, no, not everyone here knows ASL.” He scratches the back of his neck, and Jason’s a little surprised by the honesty in the motion. “Ah, what the hell, you’ll probably be working with me anyways. I’m deaf,” he declares, turning his head so Jason can see the hearing aids he had missed yesterday. They’re smaller than normal, but still, Jason’s a little disappointed with himself for not noticing.

Jason takes that with a nod when Barton’s facing him again. Barton’s face ticks upwards at the easy acceptance.

“Can I ask a question of my own?”

Jason shrugs, signing, “Sure.”

“What’d you do to Doc. Bliant? Rumor mill says she came out of your eval room _pale_. It takes a _lot_ to shake a SHIELD doc, especially Bliant. She takes care of me, after all,” he adds wryly and half under his breath.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Jason signs, but he knows what Barton’s talking about. 

Yesterday had been… an experience. After Jason finished filling out the forms Coulson gave him (twice, because apparently they were too incomplete the first time) he had been escorted to SHIELD Medical by none other than Coulson himself. When he’d tried to protest that he was fine, _really_ , Coulson had glanced pointedly at his neck and asked if he had seen a proper medical professional since obtaining his most recent injuries. 

When Jason rolled his eyes and signed, “Yes,” Coulson just gave him this _look_ and proceeded to inform him that no one had checked into any hospital in a five state radius-- or otherwise-- matching his physical description to his injuries in the last three months. 

“And besides,” Coulson added, “it’s standard protocol to have new recruits examined for physical wellness.”

So then Jason had been escorted into an evaluation room with a tall, gray-haired female doctor with a no-nonsense look on her face. Doctor Bliant, as she’d been introduced, also knew ASL--- likely the reason she’d been assigned to him at all. She’d been polite, if clinical, about his injuries and scars, and if she felt pity for him, she didn’t show it. She had faltered only slightly when gazing upon his autopsy scar, but the slip was covered within a moment. 

And Jason had felt nothing but deep, full-body relief when she declared he would eventually regain his ability to speak. In a few weeks, once he’s healed _completely_ , then he could start speech therapy. “It’ll be a process,” she told him, “and frustrating. But you’ll regain your voice with some work.”

Apparently the woman had better masks than he gave her credit for, if Barton’s telling the truth. 

“She just…” Jason shrugs, “checked me over.”

“Oh. Shit, man,” Barton says, hands wrapped around his now empty coffee cup. He blinks down at it disappointedly. “Well. I guess it’s time to get you to your physc eval. I don’t know who’s doing your evaluation, but it’s better if you’re on time and all that, you know?” Barton makes a distasteful face.

Jason does not know, and he rather figures Barton doesn’t either, so he doesn’t sign anything otherwise. They leave the cafeteria, and Jason ponders on doctors and masks the whole way there.

\-----

The agent-doctor they had assigned to do his psych eval was frustrating, but easy to talk around. They kept looking at their clipboard almost as much as they looked at Jason, and he had to sign some things more than once. Despite the sheer inconsideration in the gesture, it helped Jason’s side of the evaluation enough where he had thrown around just the right amount of childhood trauma and promises of wanting to do good that he was confident that he was going to pass whatever the requirements were.

Barton was waiting outside the evaluation room when he was finished. 

“Don’t you have people to do this for you?” Jason asks.

Barton shrugs, “Eh. Not a lot of people know ASL. And besides, I think I upset Coulson when I let you kill those two guys, and this is his way of punishing me.”

“You my shadow?” He’d been wondering, and since Coulson had picked him up in his hidey-hole apartment, he’d been fifty-fifty on either Barton or Romanoff.

Barton nods. “You move fast on rooftops.”

Jason lets out a huff, a silent piece of wry laughter. “Been doing it since I was twelve,” he shakes his head though, clearing his thoughts, “Where to next?”

Barton grins, a slash of teeth that’s more anticipatory than anything. “Combat and weapons evaluations.” 

_That_ sparks Jason’s attention. And then his thought line immediately offshoots into _damn_. Because as much as he wants to show off, in all likelihood it’s probably not a good idea. He’s already left out information on the SHIELD documents he’d been asked to fill out (he left off at least half the languages he knew, not to mention the whole ‘magical weapons’ thing). 

Jason needs to appear capable, _sure_ , but there’s no advantage in revealing all his cards. There are, however, advantages in _not_ revealing them. Should he ever need to _leave_ SHIELD, under any circumstances, he wants to have things that they don’t know so he can properly ensure that.

“Do I get my weapons back?” Jason signs, not a whisper of his thoughts in sight.

\------

He’s in the gym, running the parkour course (easier than rooftops, honestly) for part of his skills assessment, when Natasha Romanoff walks in. 

He has already completed his weapons assessment (where he had shown his proficiency with knives and guns alike, and he had dropped his accuracy to nine out of ten-- where previously it was twenty four out of twenty five; he also did _not_ get his weapons back) and his close combat assessment (which was a near thing. He’d nearly _killed_ the guy testing him-- the man was too slow-- and at the last moment Jason realized what he was doing and diverted the blow. He cringes to think what _those_ results look like.)

Romanoff’s blood red hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she’s wearing plain gray, tight-fitting gym gear, much like himself. Her calculative emerald green eyes attach themselves to him as completes the parkour course, finishing it with a roll. 

“Agent R-O-M-A-N-O-F-F,” he signs in greeting.

Her eyes don’t move from him, “Mr. Ashla.”

“What can I do for you?” he gestures, head tilting to the side. He has an _idea._

“Care to spar with me?” She gestures towards the training mats on the left side of the gym. 

“Sure,” he nods in agreement, and then, unable to help himself, he adds, “Something wrong with my previous close combat test?”

“Not obviously,” she says, a slight rasp noticeable in her voice, “I just want to test something.” She looks faintly amused with him, lips quirked at the corners. 

“Alright.” He wants to spar anyways. Romanoff is one of SHIELD’s best. In all likelihood, from what he has read, she’s probably better than him. It’ll be fun. 

(For SHIELD, though, it’s likely going to be a more accurate assessment of his fighting ability. He doesn’t think he’ll get away with holding back on this one.)

They head over to the left side of the gym. There they step onto the red, clay colored mats, standing a few feet apart from each other. Neither of them call go, instead just assessing each other, looking for openings and weaknesses. Jason stands there, not in any one particular starting position. Romanoff is a mirror. She could probably stand there all day, he realizes, waiting on him to make the first move. So he does.

At the first contact of skin, he knows he isn’t going to win. Romanoff is fast, lithe, her body language almost entirely unreadable. She’s strong for her size and uses his strengths (and definitely his weaknesses) against him. 

It lasts for three and a half glorious minutes, longer than either of them are used to-- he assumes-- in just a spar. It ends with them locked body to body, Romanoff’s hands set in a position to break his neck and one arm trapped underneath him. He huffs, thumping his hand against her to tap out. 

She disengages, steps up and back, and he rolls upwards, shaking out his limbs. He hasn’t had a spar like that, something almost _friendly,_ in a long time. 

It feels _good_ , he thinks.

Romanoff wipes a stray hair away from her face, the beginnings of sweat trying to make it stick. “You held back on your previous assessment.”

Jason rolls his head from side to side, trying to release some of the tension in his neck. “I almost killed the guy,” he signs just to be contrary. 

Romanoff tilts her head at him, gaze narrow. It unnervingly reminds him of a cat watching their prey. “Indeed you did. You held back, your opponent took advantage, and you defended yourself the way you know how-- instinctively and destructively. Your holding back led to that.”

Jason thinks about it; privately admits she’s probably right. He just signs, “Maybe.”

Her lips quirk, eyes shining, amused at him again. She probably knows he agrees, he thinks, if she’s letting her amusement show. “Do you want to go again?”

He wonders what she’ll look for this time. Maybe she’ll analyze his fighting style, or try to figure out just how long he’s been doing this. Maybe it’s neither, and she simply likes having a sparring partner that lasts longer than a minute. Maybe it’s a mix.

Jason figures it doesn’t matter. She’ll get what she wants from him, and he’ll likely be none the wiser. 

“Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading and leaving comments and kudos!


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